


Good Pearls

by Florentine



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, Homeworld is Horrible, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Past Pearl/Rose Quartz (Steven Universe), Pearl Solidarity (Steven Universe), Sign Language, but only really at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:00:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23600461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Florentine/pseuds/Florentine
Summary: Pearls have learned other ways to speak to each other.
Relationships: Blue Diamond's Pearl/Yellow Diamond's Pearl (Steven Universe), Pearl/Pink Diamond’s Original Pearl | Volleyball
Comments: 16
Kudos: 185





	Good Pearls

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to the pearls server for giving me the inspiration to write this out!!!

Good Pearls are seen and not heard.

Many Pearls cannot speak. Whether they’ve forgotten how over so many aeons of silence or were created mute to please a particularly sadistic upper-class Gem, words don’t come to them. The rest find that when they deviate from the pre-accepted phrases––the inane “yes, My” and “of course, My”––that so oversaturate their vocabulary, their words come out clunky and disorganised. Their hands flutter by their faces or their arms like little wafts of dust, useless and unhelpful; their syllables stutter and break off.

Other Gems think they are stupid for this, that Pearls cannot think for themselves. Other Gems laugh behind their hands if they’re polite and in Pearls’ faces if they are not, and so few Gems extend any courtesy to Pearls. _Not real Gems,_ they’ll say with an air of unearned superiority as though the Pearl cannot hear them. _Good thing they’re cute. Not a lot goin’ on those gems of theirs, huh? Good on you for earnin’ one though. Not an easy thing to do, get a Pearl, and even if they’re pretty dumb they’re_ pretty...

Good Pearls are _seen,_ not heard.

Good Pearls know how to make a movement so subtle as to be undetectable by any Gem who doesn’t know to look for it.

Good Pearls know that a left foot turned outward and the right one forward with two clasped hands means “I am content,” but a left foot turned _forward_ and the right _inward_ with the same clasped hands means “the Gem across the room is looking at me and I want her to stop.”

Good Pearls know that a semi-circle made with a pinky turning clockwise around the gem means “I am panicking, help me leave.”

Good Pearls know that two taps against another’s palm is an urgent sign, one that means she needs a place to hide and _now_ ; that a very precise back-and-forth motion of the thumb against a palm means “I’m happy to see you in one piece”; that one’s finger held between two of another’s means the two will never meet again. They dread that sign most of all.

Good Pearls are seen by other Good Pearls.

* * *

Pearls have no sign for love.

They have signs for devotion, reverence, fondness, admiration, loyalty, and worship––but none for love. _Love_ is a foreign concept, one meant for other Gems in the stories they tell in hushed crevices and through dim projections. _Love_ requires a mind that is all one’s own and a permanence they can never guarantee. How could a Pearl love when she could be taken away for the smallest infraction or her form can be ordered stock-still? Pearls cannot love, because they are not their own Gems.

(It’s in the stories they tell of the Renegade, always skirted around with frilly words and euphemism, but none dare to vocalise that perhaps she _loves_ Rose Quartz.)

Blue knows all of this to be true. She has known it to be true longer than most of the Pearls she’s met.

She still doubts.

If it isn’t simply _devotion_ that leads her to endure Her Diamond’s tears––if it isn’t only _reverence_ that has her anticipating Her Diamond’s needs––if not just fondness or admiration or loyalty or worship that makes her want more than anything to cease the crying, not only to stop the _deep wrenching pit in her own gem but for the sake of Her Diamond_ ––what is it? She’s tried for millennia to explain just how deeply she feels for Her Diamond, how much it is and isn’t all of those wonderful things, how it’s _more_ than that.

Her words come clunkily when she tries to speak these thoughts, so she’s stopped trying. Little wisps of syllables are gone before they even begin, and sentences she can picture so clearly in flitters of fingers shatter at her lips. Even by Yellow, who she trusts with every piece of herself (and if _that_ isn’t simply devotion or reverence or fondness or––), she simply cannot speak her thoughts. The silence is familiar; the inability to explain it through gesture, even to another Pearl, is not. She’s tried so many times to get Yellow to understand, awkwardly shifting and combining signs that _almost_ capture the feeling, _almost_ turn thought into phrase, but never quite land the mark and instead leave her quietly simmering.

No other Gem can love a Pearl. Pearls, like wrenches and gravel and codes, are merely tools to a greater end, disposable once their use has run its course. When they can no longer sing as beautifully or anticipate their owner’s needs as precisely, they are processed to be made into better Pearls. She knows that, too, has accepted that she will shatter long before Her Diamond––stars willing.

(She knows that when Pearls tell their stories of the Renegade, some whisper that perhaps Rose Quartz loves _her_ in return.)

Blue still wishes. Perhaps she even hopes.

She wishes that when Her Diamond excuses stupid mistakes, turns the other way at a missung note or clumsy pirouette, that it would mean something more than a simple fondness for a simple Gem. Her Diamond has more to worry about than the happiness of her Pearl––has colonies to run and grief to hold and Gems to manage––and she still allows her to be held, almost cradled, in a massive hand when she could stand on the ground just as easily. She wishes that that could be the same elusive non-word she can never quite parse.

It feels different, though, when it’s Yellow. Different and still the same, still that more-than-devotion-reverence-fondness-admiration-loyalty-worship, but so much _closer._ Her Diamond never ( _could_ never, because what Gem worth her carbon would bother learning the silent language of a barely-sentient class?) dragged two fingertips down her palm to mean “we’re safe.” She’s never shifted clasped hands from upright to facing forward to warn Blue of another Gem approaching. Certainly she’s never tried to replicate the awkward, clumsy, fluttery fingers that almost mean something close to _love._

Yellow has. Blue doesn’t know what to think about that, so she doesn’t.

* * *

There are no Pearls to sign with.

She knew coming to Earth that there would be so few Pearls to talk with. How could she ask them to abandon their owners, the Gems they’ve dedicated every piece of themselves to, for who they think is a soldier too low-class to ever even deserve a Pearl of her own? Pearl could never ask that of them. She couldn’t even do it herself. Other Gems, she rants and raves about in the quiet hours of the early morning, _don’t they realise Homeworld is_ terrible _to them, do they_ like _being treated like that, why can’t they_ leave? Not Pearls, though, never Pearls, for whom being taken from their owner and their duty feels like their very core has been ripped from their gem and tossed to the wind.

It’s lonely, though.

The Gems on Earth don’t understand her. Even with her rapidly-increasing numbers of defeated Homeworld soldiers and swords to defeat them with, Gems think she’s all bluster and smoke and mirrors and Rose Quartz’s silly imaginings. She can’t _speak_ to them, not with the nuance she wants to; when she tries to tell them not to attack so close to the base, there are defenceless Gems inside, she stutters on “defenceless” and signs for “a Pearl unable to move on her own anymore” and none of them understand it. To them, it only looks like she’s fruitlessly pointing to her own gem with her third finger and stuttering. They’re kinder than Homeworld Gems––they only laugh for a moment––and they attack anyway. She doesn’t know what became of the Pearl. When she asks, Rose gives her a _look_ that tells her everything she needs to know, and she doesn’t ask again.

She learns to speak. She learns to project her voice enough to catch the attention of rowdy Gems tasting freedom for the first time and unwilling to listen to a Gem they’ve always ignored. She learns the words they use, and they have so little of the nuance she feels in her gem, so she overexplains but they _understand_ her. Eventually, soldiers fall in line to her command just as easily as they do Rose’s, and she’s proud of herself.

Lonely. But proud.

It isn’t until they attack Blue Diamond’s base that Rose asks a question.

As they departed, Pearl had turned briefly to Blue (such an old friend, perhaps the last Pearl she would ever see), met hidden eyes, and mimed holding a finger between two of her own. _Goodbye. We won’t meet again._ It looked like nothing to any other Gem, a split second movement that could have meant anything. Rose saw the aftermath: Pearl sobbing in great heaves that shook her gem and immobilised her for hours and left her unable to fully express why. All she could say was that Pearls had a language all their own (and for a moment, Rose was fascinated only with that, almost forgetting about her second-in-command’s weeping) and she and Blue had said goodbye _forever._ She confessed that she missed her friends, missed the other Pearls, missed their communication that meant _so much_ to them, and all of it––all the weeping and carrying on about missing Gems nobody thought twice about––was so _Pearl-like_ that she wanted to rip it out of her form. Thank the stars no other Gem saw her. What would they think?

Rose, in all her infinite kindness and limited understanding, asked later if Pearl would teach her the Pearls’ language. Maybe then she would have somebody to talk to.

The _look_ Pearl gave her, so withering, so layered with emotion Rose couldn’t entirely understand––

 _(That was their language. That was for_ them. _They invented it to hide from the upper class Gems who would shatter them for speaking out of turn and upheld it to share thoughts and feelings with the only Gems who could understand. They’d passed it through the Reef in secret, taught newly-emerged Pearls that their voices would never be as powerful as their hands, showed them that they had a community to return to. No other Gem, no non-Pearl, could understand the nuances of their language. They had never had to tell a dear friend that they would be gone for a while because another Gem wanted them to reform to look more in-fashion, never had to hide from a Gem who could shatter them as easily as a decorative vase and face no punishment. Never had to look a friend in the eyes and know she had been rejuvenated simply because she laughed too hard and materials were too expensive to bother with shattering her, nor have they considered that a mercy. Other Gems cannot know Pearls’ signs because other Gems are the entire reason for its creation.)_

––Rose dropped the request immediately.

* * *

Pearls have no sign for abuse.

Pearls cannot _be_ abused, because Pearls are not their own Gems. Nobody tells an Agate to stop wielding her destabiliser so distastefully to avoid hurting it or a Lapis Lazuli to treat the water more gently as she turns rocks to space rubble; nobody tells a Gem to be kinder to her Pearl. Any softness or hardness is at more important Gems’ discretion, and Yellow knows she should feel fortunate to be in one piece at all and she should one day face her shattering taking pleasure in the knowledge that she was useful.

She’s still scared.

Pearls have no sign for abuse, but they have signs for injury and pain and harm and fear. When she runs to Blue, voice caught in her throat, she uses these signs in such quick succession that they’re barely distinguishable from one another. To another Gem, it would look like she’s fluttering and twitching as though her gem has been cracked. Blue understands.

_My Diamond is angry with me. She wants to harminjure me. Her recent project has failed. She wants to harminjure me. She wants to harminjure me. I need to hide. I need to hide. I need to hide. I need to hide. I’m scared. Goodbye. Goodbye. I’m scared. I need to hide._

Blue’s face, as always, is inscrutable. That stupid _hair_ in front of her eyes, Yellow wants to push it back and _see_ the thoughts of the Gem she knows. She wants to collapse against her gem and never look up. Wants to––wants––

Thin hands, identical to her own save for the colour, rest gently over her frantic fingers. There is no meaning for this in their language, but Yellow understands a _please calm down_ when she sees one.

Then, Blue moves. Her feet shift, both pointing outwards to make a sharp corner at the heels: _I’m here for you._ A twitch of the nose, combined with a flick of the right pointer finger: _I’ll find you a place to hide._ Finally, two fingers sweeping ever-so-delicately down Yellow’s palm: _We’re safe._

It all happens so quickly as to seem instantaneous to an onlooker, should there have been any. One moment, Yellow is twitching and choking on sobs; the next, she _is_ sobbing, clinging to Blue with enough force to turn carbon to diamond. She can count on Blue. She has always counted on Blue.

There are tunnels all over Homeworld that only Pearls frequent. They move silent and unseen from place to place, fetching things for other, better Gems, and they stay out from underfoot. Other Gems never think to look in there, so unobtrusive and almost unknown they are. It’s in one of these tunnels that Yellow hides until Her Diamond stops destroying the walls around her in anger. When Blue leaves her, she’s replaced by a plain green Pearl who runs two fingers down Yellow’s palm. That Pearl is replaced by a red one, who does the same, and after her a blue one who looks nothing like Blue and then a white one and a brown one. They all give the same gesture: _we’re safe._

Later, Yellow will do the same for other Pearls. It’s only fair.

She wishes there were a more concise sign to explain how Her Diamond treats her. It’s just so frequent that having many signs feels a waste.

* * *

He doesn’t know the signs.

Pearl has debated teaching him, if only for her own sake. She’s learned over the millennia to speak clearly, allows her hands to gesture and translate the sign in real-time; she has no need for the sign language anymore. Still, it stays in her gem, because to shake it is impossible and to keep it makes her feel a part of something.

It’s something she wants no part in now. She doesn’t want to be silent and near-still. She _hates_ knowing so many ways to say “I’m afraid.” She certainly never again wants to feel like she has to hide her voice.

If she teaches Steven, maybe she can tell him everything.

If she teaches Steven, she allows a non-Pearl into their world. He––so _sweet_ , sweeter even than his mother, and so much more understanding––would never abuse that privilege, she knows, but how can she give it to him when she has no other Pearl to discuss it with?

If she teaches Steven, who’s to say he’ll understand it?

Once again, she puts the idea to the side for another day and folds a thirteenth identical shirt.

* * *

Pearls have one hundred and eighty three signs for love.

Little Homeworld is nearly overrun with Pearls seeking out a better life, a reprieve from their former owners, a way off the planet that had caused them so much pain, and they love freely and openly now that they can. It seems a new sign is invented every day, even though they have no need for them now that they can speak clearly and freely. There is love for scenery and for friends and for partners and for family and for the Earth and for freedom and for blades of grass and for flowers and for bees and for everything they lay their eyes on, and the _love_ is so overwhelming and new and beautiful that they can barely keep their hands from flapping anyway.

Volleyball (that’s her name, now, she remembers when she was only Pearl, but now there is a new Only Pearl and she’s happy to give the title to her) learns every one of these signs.

She’s behind on so much of their language. It changed _so much_ in Era 2, and it leaves her signs as antiques. Of course, the other Pearls try to teach her, but there is simply _so much_ to learn and so many things on Earth to distract them with that they quickly lose track of their work. She feels grateful that some of the signs are obsolete now; she doesn’t _need_ or _want_ to know “I have a week to reform” or “she’s been reset again.”

She wants to know love.

It’s when she’s engaging in some of that love, gazing out over the sunrise over the ocean (two unfamiliar terms, two new things to _love_ ), that Pearl joins her. Pearl is so often so busy with her classes and her army of friends and the near-endless stream of appreciation from other Pearls that Volleyball falls to the wayside, and she’s all right with that. Volleyball loves to know that there are Pearls doing great things, and she loves that she has time to relax instead of worrying about doing those great things herself.

Her friend sits next to her on the stone hand of the Temple. No words are exchanged between them––not verbally. But Volleyball knows what the tiny traces of fingertips along her hand mean.

_I’m happy to see you in one piece._

An old sign. Of course an old sign, how would Pearl have learned the new ones, either? It’s familiar and beautiful and she loves that, too. She returns the sign and receives another.

_I missed you._

_I missed you._

She didn’t, not really, because she didn’t have enough control of her mind to _miss._ Pearl knows this and says nothing on it.

They sit in silence, both verbal and gesture, for a long while, content to watch the sun illuminate the planet they can both call home and listen to the waves come in and out. It’s more peace than Volleyball thinks she’s ever known.

The next words come as a surprise. A thumb, pressed into her wrist and then dragged to the side, and Volleyball finds herself choked up. It’s an uncommon sign. It’s one for _love,_ and it’s so much more than the love for the beach or the sky or a friend or anything else. It’s all the kinds of love Pearls know and invent wrapped into one gesture–– _friendly and romantic and devoted and reverent and it’s the love for the planet and the love for freedom and the love for everything, everything, everything, I love you, I love you, I love you––_ and she feels something lift in her gem.

She returns the sign.

Then she abandons it for a tight hug and a tear falling onto a teal jacket as the sun makes their gems sparkle.


End file.
